I am notorious for being a poor voicemail checker and it drives my friends crazy. Dealing with message retrieval is the modern equivalent of untangling an 80’s coily phone cord. If I miss someone’s call, I will call that person back without ever listening to her voicemail, and there’s usually an awkward moment where she thinks I already know what she was calling me about and I don’t have a clue.
And yet, dealing with my voicemail is preferable to dealing with someone else’s voicemail. If I’ve heard your personal greeting once, I don’t need to sit through it again, no matter how quirky you were when you recorded it. When I confront someone’s voicemail, it’s safe to assume that two things are about to annoy me: For one, the lack of an option to skip the personal greeting. I look back fondly on the days when “0” used to direct me straight to the beep. I think cellphone companies have become so privy to our attempts to speed up the process (saving our minutes) that now “0” just starts the process all over again. And when that does happen, not only did I just get taken back to the beginning of your personal greeting where I have to painfully endure the entire thing again, but I know what else is approaching: the 4-step tutorial given by the voicemail assistant, providing instructions on how to leave a message. I’m relieved she reminded me to hang up when I was done speaking.
